I Think, Therefore You Are Not

This is a short story excerpt of a fairly dark noir psycho thriller idea I have had. Please give it a read and let me know what you think:



I stood in front of an old chalk board. I had never been one for all this modern interactivity and e-learning nonsense. I liked good old fashioned teaching. On the board, underneath where I had written my name, I wrote the famous quote: “I think, therefore I am.

“I think, therefore I am,” I read aloud, “Simple enough. Awareness of being, a need to understand is what makes us objects of existence. Not just an ethereal wisp of the cloud of the world, drifting along, tangling with other wisps until no one is discernable from the next. It is the answer to the existential plight, I think therefore I am. But if I am, what are you?”

I leaned in close to my star student; he stared intently and hung on everything I said. I let the words and their meaning sink in, but I could see the confusion on his face. He was trying ever so hard, as he so often did, but he was still not quite getting it.

It would soon be the final exam.

“But as soon as you extend this to question the reality of objects beyond the self, people would say that you were ill and that you needed help. The irony is thinking this way results in the living of a life based on a single fact, instead of living it based on a host of suspicions. It doesn’t matter much either way. They call it a problem, but it is really a solution. Social conscience, a decrepit and poorly exercised myth, is a shackle that we clasp willingly to our limbs for no apparent reason. Governments and religion seek to control that outside their sphere of influence and yet it is all futile and unnecessary.”

I could tell I was losing my student. Now he not only did not understand but he could not keep his eye off the door. I was boring him. I could understand it, it does sound a little crazy the first time you hear it, but it becomes true enough with time.

It was time to start challenging him.

“I am: it is the one thing that I know. It is the one thing that I can be certain of. It requires no proof, no evidence, no argument, it simply is. But what about you? Can you prove to me that your existence is as real as mine?”

No answer.

“The answer is no,” I continued, “There is no evidence strong enough, no argument thorough enough to convince me that you breath the same as I do, that you feel like I do. For whatever you try to do is just an extension of your imaginary self.”

Still my student said nothing. I felt a little sorry for him; there was a vulnerability and panic in his eyes that made him seem younger than when we had first met all that time ago in the multi-storey car park. He had been so confident, so rich in authority and wisdom. But wisdom makes us wise to all we have yet to learn and I guess that’s why he found himself in my lesson.

“I was a little worried at first when I came upon this revelation,” I explained encouragingly, “Naturally, the knowledge that one is alone in the world and that everything else, everyone else, is just a decoration to add colour to this game we call life, is scary knowledge to acquire. Initially I was met with emotions of solitude and isolation, if your imaginary mind can imagine such feelings, but these quickly passed.”

He stopped looking at the door and starred straight at me. The fear was starting to compound, to well up from his gut. If it hadn’t been for the gag in his mouth I’m sure he would have vomited.

“And then came the understanding of true power. The very definition of true power. What is power but the ability to act as one desires without negative consequence? And how can there be negative consequences if nothing is real? It is like that magical moment when you realise you are within a dream and manage not to wake. The so-called rules that we impose upon our own minds evaporate into the nothingness they truly are. And this so-called real world has its own rules. Laws, conscience, morals: all of them the imaginary creations of imaginary people.”

He began twisting and yanking at his bindings, trying to break free of the little wooden chair. I smiled at him for he still did not see. He was an imaginary police officer, tied to an imaginary chair in an imaginary basement. All he needed to do was admit and acknowledge this truth and the laws of physics could be broken. If you are not real, you can not be bound.

“And what can you do to me if I break those rules?” I was roaring triumphantly now, “Nothing. Nothing real at least. Slap on the imaginary handcuffs and throw me in the imaginary jail. If that fails you can shoot me with your imaginary bullets. But still you do not understand!”

I pulled out the knife.

“You see this,” I bellowed, “it is only as real as you. I will give you this chance to be free! Believing in the Truth, it is all there is to do.”

He managed to loosen the gag from his mouth.

“Help!” he yelled.

“You are still not seeing it!” I was furious at his ignorance, “There is only one way out! Only you can help yourself, so just do it!”

“Help!” he yelled again, “Is there anyone there!?”

“Of course not!", and then I calmed a little, "no one real at least. It is sad that you must cling so desperately to this fabrication of life. If you had but believed, truly believed, my teachings, you would have been free already.”

“I do, I do,” he stuttered, spitting one of his imaginary teeth onto the floor, “I do believe, I promise.”

“Do not tell me,” I chuckled, “that’s just words. Anyone, imaginary or otherwise can say words! You must show me.”

“How?”

“Rise.”

He began shaking and shuddering even more now, desperately trying to pull free of the ropes, but still he did not understand. I stood examining the behaviour of this imaginary being, shaking my head and smiling to myself.

“Please,” he pleaded.

I stepped in with the knife, holding it up and letting it glint in the light of the fluorescent beam.

“Please,” he pleaded again, “I have a wife and two kids.”

“No you don’t."

“Okay I don’t,” he agreed, there was a puddle of liquid forming around the base of his chair; “they’re just imaginary, like me, like this chair and this room.”

“You see,” I declared, “it just makes so much more sense.”

I aimed the knife at his stomach.

“No, don’t,” he cried, “please don’t kill me.”

“I, I can’t,” I said as I plunged the imaginary blade into his imaginary stomach, “I can’t kill what doesn’t exist.”

He choked and spluttered as his imaginary blood began to pour onto the imaginary floor. Tears streamed down my face as I nearly suffocated with laughter.

“I think, therefore I am,” I said, “I think, therefore you are not.”